I'll weigh in here...........I have 4 Strats at the moment. One is MIM Standard from '99 with a maple neck that I hot rodded with new pickups and stuff. The originals really weren't bad though. I've had that Strat for 12 or 13 years and it's one of my favorites. I also owned an American Standard and an American Special at different times. I got rid of both of those. Not that they weren't quality instruments. It was mostly a personal preference issue.

Today I have an AVRI '57 Strat, a CS Time Machine '56 Strat Relic, a Road Worn '50's Strat with Seymour Duncan Antiquity pickups, and that old '99 MIM Strat. When it was time to trade something in in order to make my next purchase, I let go of the American Special and later the American Standard. I kept the MIM Standard.

Now, it's worth mentioning that I've owned several MIM standards over the years. Some were nothing special. But a couple of them were nice. Played well, sounded great, even with stock pickups, and were always dependable.


Ill echo what others have said about buying a Strat. Play as many as you can and don't worry about what kind it is or where it was made. Choose the one you like best in your price range. Also, depending on your skill as a player.......and I have no idea how well you play, please don't take this as a critisizm... you might wanna consider a Squier if you're a beginner or novice.

Id say stay away from aSquire, just pick up a used Mexican made. Try to get a "classic" series, they tend to be better built than the standards (at least the bodies are 3 piece instead of up to 6), and the hardware is better.

Regardless of being brand new, or intermediate player, you dont want to go too low. I tell my friends with kids who want to play not to buy them the cheapest guitars, because they might as well throw the money away. The cheap ones play badly, sound crappy, and the harder the guitar is to play and get a decent sound, the less likely they are to play it and practice.

With regard to making the headstock "thinner". I'm thinking that could only have an effect if the post was adjustable. If not, it wouldn't matter how "thin" the headstock was because the base (bottom) would still be in the same place, the shaft would still be the same length, and the hole in the shaft where one threads the string through would still be at the same height. the only other way to lower the string would be to wind a ton of the string on the post so that it lowers the string height. Then if one were using locking tuners it would negate that.

So, were the posts adjustable? Or was a shim used on the back side of the headstock to pull the shaft towards the back?

MiM strats are not bad guitars. i prefer american just for novelty i guess but they are certainly better than those !@$ ibanezes or schecters although i respect schecter i still think fender puts em to shame. MiM strats arnt bad i play one once and played a few when i bought my first strat (american deluxe ash strat) and they seemed to play just about the same. perhaps a few details vary that i didnt notice but it didnt impose a "cheap" feel it played nice

mim's are good ones. if you have the possibility to check out before buying do so.

good luck and cheers

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Electronics on the MIM are not as good and the nut is slightly narrower. As long as the frets are level and clean, you're not going to miss the extra fret. (MIA are 22 frets and MIM are 21). However, I'd be in the market for used gear. MIA strats are dropping in price now, finally catching up to the downward spiral of the economy. You may find a MIA standard strat for a hundred or so Euro's above the Eu400 you have saved up.

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"Epitaph on a blues musician’s tombstone: “I didn’t wake up this morning”" Davy Knowles


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